


The 1980s Good Sparkmate's Guide (Updated for the Postwar Bondmate)

by kanonkita



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arranged Marriage, Comedy of Errors, First Time, I make no promises about the ratio of angst to ending, I will doubtless prove myself wrong, M/M, Mechpreg, Mpreg, Political Marriage, Postwar AU, Seal Breaking, Size Difference, no beta we die like optimus prime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:01:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26246830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanonkita/pseuds/kanonkita
Summary: Politically, it's a great idea. In practice, Optimus would really rather not marry Skywarp.
Relationships: Elita One/Optimus Prime, Elita One/Various Femmes, Megatron/Starscream (Transformers), Optimus Prime/Skywarp
Comments: 24
Kudos: 69





	The 1980s Good Sparkmate's Guide (Updated for the Postwar Bondmate)

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting around in my WIPs for quite a while and I figured it was time to let it breathe! Gonna try and force myself to keep it to 5 chapters or less.... Lol
> 
> Also, please note that Cybertronian gestation takes 3 years in this AU.

Optimus had a conjunx, but he'd never had a conjunxing ceremony. Alpha Trion had simply announced their new relationship status to them as they'd woken from the surgery, and... Well, neither of them had objected to it at the time. He'd been thinking of asking Aerial anyway, and the both of them were a bit preoccupied with the whole frame and name change business. He was pretty sure Elita wouldn't have much cared for a ceremony if he'd planned one for her, and there wasn't time in the middle of a war, anyway.

When the Ark went down, they'd each thought the other dead, and their reunion couldn't erase the four million year gap that now stretched between them. Four million years Elita had lived without him, and they'd been more amica than conjunx for a good while before that. He couldn't resent her the new relationships she'd formed when neither of them had ever officially sworn fidelity anyway.

And then came the day that Megatron showed up on Optimus's doorstep with a white cape draped about his shoulders.

“White isn't your color, Megatron,” the Prime had told him while his Autobots milled curiously behind him, and Megatron had wordlessly handed over a ceasefire treaty for him to sign—a shockingly reasonable one that only asked that both factions leave Earth and stick to opposite hemispheres of their own planet while they, the leaders, worked out the full terms of negotiations from the neutral grounds of Luna 2.

“Why?” Optimus had wanted to know.

“I am hoping that when my heir is born, his or her first sunrise will be on our own world,” Megatron had replied.

Optimus had taken that as Megatron's hopes for the distant future. None of them had realized how immediate these plans were until the first of their official peace talks, nearly a year later, which Megatron had arrived to with his former second-in-command at his side, helm high, thrusters slightly shorter than usual, and cockpit recently adjusted to make room for the swell in his lower abdomen that had most certainly never been there before.

Neither of them said anything about it throughout the duration of the meeting, leaving the entire Autobot faction scrambling to do the math.

“If he didn't offer you that ceasefire treaty the same day he found out Starscream was carrying, then I'll deliver that sparkling myself,” Ratchet declared into his third cube of high grade.

“This is terrible,” Prowl mumbled from the other side of the conference table, knuckles pressed into his forehelm and a look of blank horror on his face. “This changes everything... We didn't  _ plan _ for this!”

“It ain't that bad, kid,” Ironhide tried to reassure him. “Just cause they done knocked chassis a few times too many don't mean they're gettin' along any better'n they ever have.”

“Starscream is the only mech left in all of Cybertron aside from Optimus with a legitimate claim to sovereignty!” the tactician snapped back. “Why else do you think Megatron would shove an heir in a mech he's openly hated for millions of years!? That sparkling is going to be the most powerful person on Cybertron the second it opens its optics!”

“Vos doesn't even exist anymore,” Optimus pointed out, swirling his own engex thoughtfully. “And I don't think for a moment that Megatron would trust Starscream with a throne of his own if it did, whatever their relationship is.”

“It is a bit of a point in their favor that they got this whole 'happy family' image they can present to the neutrals, though,” Ironhide conceded.

“Exactly!” Prowl snapped. “People are coming back scared and uncertain and not at all believing us that this peace is going to last, and now Megatron can stand up with his trophy mate and bouncing bundle of terror and say, 'Look at us! Look at all the reasons we have to want this peace to last!' and they'll flock to him like... like... like those things on Earth. The fluffy ones.”

“Sheep?” Jazz supplied.

“You actually think Starscream  _ is _ his mate, though?” Elita snorted from her habitual spot at Optimus's side. “I don't care what they're doing in berth together, they still hate each other. Starscream is carrying his sparkling—has been for over a year—and Megatron didn't even pull his chair out for him. I didn't see them touch each other the whole day. For all we know, it's not even Megatron's.”

A contemplative silence fell over the assembled Autobots, and Optimus felt his spark, which had sunk straight into his pedes and spent the rest of the day somewhere down there from the moment Megatron and Starscream had walked through that door, lift momentarily.

“True,” Prowl slowly agreed. “He  _ is _ a seeker, after all.”

“Mebbe you should ask Megatron 'bout it, Prahm,” Ironhide suggested.

“I... I suppose...” Optimus stammered, as the thought of having a conversation with Megatron about the details of his relationship with his former second-in-command sent his spark right back through his pedes to rest somewhere in the basements of the council chambers.

All things considered, he and Megatron had become quite civil in their conversations of late, and not just in that they actually  _ had _ conversations that didn't end with one of them trying to shoot the other. The two of them had even begun exchanging correspondence about non-political matters. It had started when Megatron had recommended some books that Optimus might like to read for a better understanding of the Decepticon side of the war and had, for reasons Optimus had pondered and theorized over ever since, asked after Optimus's personal tastes in literature.

“Maybe you should,” Elita agreed, her strong hand finding his leg beneath the table and squeezing encouragingly. “And meeting with him under casual circumstances would send such an image of cooperation to the people, don't you think?”

Which was how Optimus ended up having lunch with Megatron the next day.

“I know what you wish to discuss,” the former warlord announced the moment he took his seat.

“Can't I just want to have lunch with you?” Optimus protested. “Get to know you as someone other than the mech who spent several million years trying to rip me apart with his bare hands?”

The older mech gave him a calculating look, and then cracked open his menu.

“Starscream is carrying my heir,” he announced casually as he scanned it. “He's a little over a year into gestation, and will not be heavily involved in political activities until after the sparkling is safely delivered.”

“Oh,” Optimus remarked., and this time, his spark didn't just fall; it hit the ground and shattered. “So, is he... Are the two of you....?”

Megatron's expression immediately soured.

“I notice Elita still chooses to stay with her band of merry femmes rather than in the embassy with yourself,” he said coldly. “Shall we discuss that?”

“If you like,” Optimus shrugged, fiddling with his napkin. “Elita is a dear friend, and I would never dream to inhibit her with something so petty as a conjunx bond we never properly swore to one another.”

Across the table, Megatron snorted, his expression lightening once more.

“Your people will doubtless expect you to provide them with heirs, though,” he commented, turning back to his menu. “You're the first decent Prime we've ever had, and I imagine Autobots and Decepticons alike will sleep more easily to know your line is secure. Otherwise, who knows what random hot shot will try to lay claim to the Matrix after your death?”

“That would require me to first find someone willing to bear said heirs,” Optimus pointed out drily, and a look suddenly glinted in Megatron's optics—one that the Prime knew all too well. “I can see you plotting something over there, Megatron, and I would remind you that we are, in fact, supposed to be working toward political stability here.”

“That is precisely what I am thinking about, Prime,” the warlord assured him with a devil's grin.

Optimus really should have thought more on the connotations of that.

* * *

“No.”

“Optimus,” Prowl sighed, kneading at one of the headaches that Optimus was certain had been plaguing his chief tactician  _ more _ since the war's end, “I honestly despise myself for saying this, but... Megatron makes a good point.”

“I don't care how good the point is, the proposition is terrible!” the Prime despaired, looking desperately between his advisers—his  _ friends _ , he'd thought.

“Can't say I'd enjoy it...” Ironhide muttered under his breath as he glared down at his copy of their latest communique from the Decepticon contingency.

“This isn't about  _ enjoyment _ ,” Prowl snapped at him. “It's about securing the stability of our government and the future of our race, and on both counts, this is an excellent idea!”

“I don't know anything about him!” Optimus protested, looking back down at the original document in front of himself.

It was big and official-looking and written in the formal Old Cybertronian script that had always been used for official state business before the war.

_ Megatron of Tarn, Lord High Protector of Cybertron _ , it read in flowing script,  _ proposes the release of his ward, Skywarp of Vos's Crown Trine, for the purpose of union in frame and spark to Optimus Prime of Iacon. _

This was the formal proposal, apparently worded in the Vossian manner, and with it had come a hefty letter in Megatron's own hand explaining why it would be politically advantageous for everyone involved if Optimus would take Skywarp as a mate.

“Why does it say 'ward'?” Optimus wondered, sticking on the details so as not to consider the whole situation too completely. “Skywarp isn't still underage, is he?”

“I doubt it,” Ratchet huffed. “He has a trine, doesn't he?”

“Prolly ‘cause Megs thinks he owns all o’ his soldiers,” Jazz supplied. “Ya see how he treats the highest rankin’ ones an’ it ain’t hard to imagine what the lower ones must have to put up with.”

“Skywarp ain't exactly low-rankin',” Ironhide pointed out.

“Which is exactly why this is a sound proposal!” Prowl insisted, waving his copy of Megatron's letter. “No one's saying you have to  _ like _ him, Optimus. Primus knows Megatron doesn't  _ like _ Starscream, but taking a high-ranking Decepticon as your apparent mate will immediately soften your image to the remaining Decepticons while solidifying the picture of peace that the neutrals will see!”

“Not if I'm taking him unwillingly! There's nothing in here about Skywarp's thoughts on the matter at all!” Optimus pointed out. “I can't imagine for an instant that he would rather come live among his former enemies as my trophy mate than stay with his trine!”

“Agreed,” Ratchet spoke up again. “There's no point in Optimus taking a mate from the enemy side to secure his lineage if said mate isn't interested in being secured.”

Prowl opened his mouth to reply.

“I want you to think  _ reeeeal hard _ about whatever you're about to suggest,” Ratchet interrupted him, “and ask yourself, 'Do I really feel like getting kicked out of this meeting right now?'”

“Wha... I was going to say we should  _ ask _ him!” Prowl spluttered. “What did you  _ think _ I was going to say!?”

“Never can tell with you...” the medic muttered.

* * *

They got Skywarp’s reply the next day, scrawled in an excitable-looking hand:

_ Obviously I wanna bond with Prime. Duh. _

“Well, won’t that be nice?” Elita said when he showed it to her in her private quarters.

“Surely this bothers you,” he frowned. “I’ll be taking a second bondmate. I know our relationship is less than conventional, but… neither of us has ever invited anyone else into our bond.”

“I don’t mind,” she assured him. “Honestly, I think it’ll be good for you. You’re so stiff these days, Orion. Why  _ not _ take on a pretty, young conjunx to keep your berth warm? You deserve a few luxuries in life.”

“That’s exactly the sort of thinking that brought about Nova and Sentinel’s infamous harems,” Optimus sighed, sinking down beside her on the edge of the berth. “No one  _ deserves _ free reign over another mech’s frame and spark.”

“Well, Skywarp sounds plenty willing to give it to you, nonetheless,” the femme mused, taking the little note from his servo.

“He’s practically a youngling! And Megatron is very persuasive. I’m still not convinced that Skywarp isn’t entering into this with false or incomplete information.”

“He’s old enough to know what it means to be conjunxed,” Elita snorted. “Besides, he  _ is _ a seeker. You know how they are about interface. He’s not exactly innocent, now is he?”

“That’s not entirely the point.”

“You’re too good for your own good sometimes, Orion.”

“If I am, then it is only because my own good has not been something I’ve had the luxury of considering for a very long time,” he returned.

“Well, I wish you would do this for yourself, but it  _ would _ be good for your people if you would accept this match,” she sighed, offering Skywarp’s note back to him. “A hot mess he may be half the time, but I do agree with Prowl on that much, at least.”

“Yes,” Optimus agreed, spark heavy as he took it. “I suppose it would.”

* * *

Which was how Optimus had found himself sitting on a conjugal dais two months later, spark still spinning a bit too fast from the merge he had barely noticed himself performing on the little purple seeker now seated at his side.

“They did a great job on the decorations,” Skywarp commented, fidgeting with a corner of his ceremonial cape. “That'll be Starscream, for sure. He's always had an eye for details, and he's been, like, totally obsessed with interior design lately, which kinda makes sense, I guess, considering. I hope they did as good a job on the Primal Residence. Mind you, anything would look like a palace after the  _ Nemesis. _ Starscream hates our new place because it doesn’t have enough gilding, but I just like having a berth I can stretch out on again.”

“There are a lot of windows,” Optimus told him absently. He’d gone on a tour of the conjugal suite just the other day with Jazz, who had wanted to show off the security features he’d installed it with.

“Really?” The silk and gauze draped over Skywarp’s wings rustled as he fluttered them in obvious excitement. “I love a good window! One that looks at something other than fish. Megatron hates windows. Says they’re just an invitation for snipers.”

The young mech continued rambling about curtains and the size of washrack drains and window heights and a million other things that Optimus had never lent a thought to in his entire life but that were apparently hugely important to his new conjunx.

His new conjunx whom Optimus knew next to nothing about except that he could teleport and had, for some reason, decided to trine himself to Starscream some million years ago. Or... Well, with the time they'd spent in stasis on Earth, Optimus supposed it was more like five million years ago, but that was well beside the point.

They were bonded now.

Optimus could feel the seeker as a little hum of something like anxiety in the back of his spark, right where he'd grown accustomed to feeling Elita a lifetime ago.

Elita was here tonight, weaving through the crowd and making sure that everyone was having the best of times while another mech—practically a stranger—got to sit on the dais she’d never had. Not that she wanted it. Elita had at least three femmes who shared her berth at any given time these days, and had continued to express nothing but relief that Optimus was soon going to have someone who could do for him what they did for her.

What her femmes did for her.

Optimus glanced down at his chattery mate, looking over his broad wings, smooth cockpit, and those servos whose entire span was barely the width of Optimus's palm.

“Starscream is going to be totally stabby that he missed this with all the work he put into planning it,” Skywarp giggled lightly, drawing Optimus's attention back to him. “But it's  _ my _ bonding ceremony, and if he  _ was  _ here, he'd just find a way to make it all about him, you know?”

“Where is your trine leader tonight?” the Prime asked, more for the sake of maintaining the appearance of having a conversation with his new mate—of being  _ happy _ about this—than because he really cared. He hadn't wanted Starscream swooping and screeching around tonight, either. It would only have made an already stressful situation that much worse.

“Couldn't get out of his berth,” Skywarp sighed. “Megatron almost stayed behind with him, but Soundwave said he, like,  _ had _ to be here.”

“Is Starscream ill?” And this time Optimus genuinely did want to know because Starscream's health was key to the stability of the entire planet these days.

“Nah, just pregnant,” Skywarp waved it aside. “Hook says I'll be a lot better at it, just fyi. Starscream has, like, some weird spark anomaly, or something... Figures.”

“Ah.” Optimus carefully fixed his optics on the celebration unfolding beneath them once more. The last thing he wanted to think about at the moment was Skywarp’s compact frame weighed down with his own sparkling.

“I can't do this,” Optimus announced, his digit frozen over the door control for the conjugal suite.

“Yes, you can,” Ironhide grunted behind him. “It ain't that hard. Prolly even enjoyable, if ya can jus' relax a bit.”

The Prime turned around to face his oldest living friend, spark in his throat.

“Relax?” he hissed. “You want me to  _ relax? _ Ironhide, I punched a missile at him once!!”

“Yeah? An' 'is trine leader reggerly 'faces a mech who used ta put new dents in 'im like it were some kinda contest,” Ironhide pointed out. “Megs ain't dead yet, so... Make it good an' mebbe he'll forgive ya.”

Optimus gave him a dark expression, and the other mech burst into laughter.

“Optimus, he's yer mate. Yer actual, bonded mate. He can' hurt ya without hurtin' 'imself, an' when have ya ever known Skywarp ta be the self-sacrificing sort?”

“I don't  _ want _ him to be my mate!” Optimus despaired in return, and then instantly bit his glossa as he realized the truth of those words he hadn't let himself speak once over the last few months.

Ironhide just rolled his optics, though.

“Well, the time for that was about seven hours ago,” he said. “He  _ is _ yer mate now, mech, an' ya can' undo that without seriously offendin' Megs, I'm sure.”

Optimus groaned, falling back against the wall.

“Look,” Ironhide sighed. “Ya jus' gotta get in there, get it done, an' then ya can get out. Y'all might be bonded, but I can' imagine Skywarp's any more tizzied 'bout sharin' a berth wi'you than you are wi'him.”

“Okay, okay,” Optimus grimaced, rubbing at his temples.

“Stop bein' a sparklin',” Ironhide continued. “Square yer shoulders, chug some high grade if ya really need it, an' go show that seeker the best night 'e's ever had!”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Optimus frowned, reaching up to the control pad again.

“Jus' try not ta think 'bout who else done did 'im 'fore ya.”

“I'll see you tomorrow morning, Ironhide,” Optimus said quickly, slapping the button to open the door and slipping through before the other mech could give him any more “helpful hints.”

When Optimus had toured the conjugal suite a few days prior, he had wondered who could ever want so many windows. There was entirely more glass than Optimus had ever been accustomed to, and he remembered wondering how anyone could possibly want to spend their time in a room that created the illusion that there was only an invisible barrier between himself and a fifty story drop to the Basilica below. He had his answer as soon as he walked in.

Skywarp was standing with his back to Optimus, face pressed so close to the glass that the air expelled from his vents was sending puffs of condensation rolling out across the windows on either side of him.

He turned at the sound of the door, face breaking into a wide grin.

“There you are!” he chirped, flouncing across the glossy, black floor.

“Apologies. I had some matters of state to attend to,” Optimus told him, stiffly, unsure how exactly to address a mech he didn't know but whose life was already inextricably bound to his own.

“No worries.” Skywarp waved it aside as he came up to take one of the Prime's large, blue servos in both of his own dainty, black ones. “I know you aren't rude enough to leave me alone on our bonding night.”

Oh how Optimus wished he was.

“Yes. That. Bonding night,” he stammered, his digits limp in the seeker's grasp. “What, um... What did you have in mind for tonight?”

Skywarp's expression faltered, and foreign anxiety spiked in Optimus's chest again.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” the seeker said. “Why? What did  _ you _ have in mind.”

“Well... I just want to make sure that you're comfortable,” Optimus coughed.

“No worries there. The berth is  _ much _ nicer than the one me and my trine shared.”

Optimus coughed again, almost a choke this time.

“Do you need something to drink?” Skywarp asked. “Someone's left some super awesome high grade in the berthroom—our berthroom, I guess.”

“That... It has been a long day, yes. I'm sure we could both use a drink,” Optimus conceded.

“Oh, I've already had some,” Skywarp giggled, starting to tug him toward the berthroom. “That's how I know it's good.”

Optimus immediately recognized the seal on the bottle when Skywarp produced the it—Moonracer's. Elita had sent it over for them, then. The femme's determination for him to be someone else's problem knew no bounds, apparently.

“You don't have to do that,” Optimus commented as he watched the seeker pour some of the almost clear liquid into a cube for him.

“Yes, I do. It's our bonding night,” Skywarp remarked as he held out the cube. Optimus took it, and the seeker chinked his own against it.

“To the future,” Optimus said blankly before tossing his back.

“Whose future?” Skywarp wanted to know.

“At this point, I'm willing to drink just to having one,” Optimus muttered when he surfaced. It  _ was _ good stuff. Sweet and smooth but so full of charge that he could already feel it crackling through his tanks.

“Here, here,” Skywarp hummed. And he stepped forward to lean into Optimus's frame.

For a moment, the larger mech didn't know what to do. There was a seeker pressed against his front, cool cockpit and warm vents and surprisingly strong arms wrapped around his middle, smiling up expectantly from between the two halves of Optimus’s windshield while his field radiated desire straight to Optimus’s core. The Prime’s processor couldn’t seem to decide whether to engage his spike or his battle computer.

“You should sit down,” Skywarp suggested. “It’s been a long day.”

“You’re tired?” Optimus perked up at the thought, but Skywarp just laughed, his wings fluttering with it.

“I took a nap while I was waiting for you,” he said, pulling back and taking one of Optimus’s servos with him. “I’m good to go!”

Before Optimus could offer further protest, his mate was leading him to a large, modern-looking chair. Unlike some of the other chairs in the suite, this one was not modified to accommodate a set of wings on its occupant’s back. Optimus allowed Skywarp to settle him in it, and found himself letting out a groan of relief as the weight came off his weary pedes. It  _ had _ been a long day.

“That’s the spirit!” Skywarp giggled as Optimus let his helm fall back into the chair. “Let me help you relax.”

Optimus’s helm snapped back up immediately as Skywarp sank to his knees in front of him. “What are you doing?” he asked, keeping his own knees clamped firmly together when the seeker placed his servos on them.

“Bonding,” Skywarp told him, laying a warm cheek against the Prime’s thigh armor. “May I?”

It was so very wrong to let Skywarp continue this, he knew. For him to let this young, beautiful creature service him like some kind of pleasure drone. Like he was... was...  _ Megatron _ , indulging in whatever carnal pleasures he saw fit.

But, at the same time, he was  _ supposed _ to be doing this. He was  _ supposed _ to mate with Skywarp. For the good of Cybertron. And how else was he supposed to get in the mood to do that?

Optimus let his knees fall open, and the seeker instantly started nuzzling into him, rubbing his face up the inside of Optimus's thigh with little chirring noises that the Prime had known seekers made but never heard before. A small servo was running its way up the underside of his left thigh while a pair of tender lips pressed to the seam where his leg met his pelvic armor. Hopefully, Skywarp knew what he was doing, because Primus knew Optimus’s spike wasn't doing its job just from looking at the seeker.

Not that this fact wasn’t heartening in its own way. He wasn't quite so bad as Megatron then. Not growling his engines in the middle of battle while he watched a shapely pair of white and red wings flash by overhead.

Megatron... growling his engines, the heat rolling off of him as they rolled each other through the mud, servos grappling at each other's vulnerable spots...

And with that happy thought, Optimus felt his intimate array finally ping online.

Well.

As embarrassing as that was, at least it was something he could work with.

Skywarp must have felt the excess heat start to radiate off of him because the seeker looked up and gave a little smile before pressing his whole mouth to the panel covering Optimus's gradually pressurizing spike.

“There,” Optimus told him, reaching out to caress the young mech's helm so he wouldn't think this was entirely unwanted. “Just a little more.”

Skywarp purred, his optics falling shut as he continued to mouth at the seams of Optimus's interface panels, and Optimus closed his own optics, trying to imagine it was another, much larger mouth pleasuring him, seeking out his sensitive spots. Clever digits dug into his hip seams and plucked at the wires there, sending jolts of extra charge into Optimus's array. He groaned as his spike cover slipped open and the appendage began to emerge. The Prime reached down to fist himself to full pressurization, only for a pair of warm, soft lips to beat him to it.

His optics snapped open to find Skywarp sucking the tip of his spike into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Optimus demanded, grabbing hold of the young mech's helm to pull him off before he could take anymore of his length.

“Appreciating you,” Skywarp answered, looking confused.

“By sucking... Skywarp, I don't know what you've experienced with other mechs, but this is the sort of act that shouldn't be performed until a strong foundation of trust is built,” the Prime explained critically.

“How is this any different than what I was just doing a second ago?” the seeker asked with a little frown.

“It's... It just is,” Optimus sighed, letting go of him. He could see he was going to have his work cut out for him in reeducating the poor thing. “I can get myself the rest of the way just fine if you'd like to get yourself situated on the berth.”

And that instantly brought Skywarp's grin back.

The seeker bounded to his pedes and skipped over to throw himself onto the massive berth while Optimus took himself in hand and pumped a few more ridges of his spike out. It took more concentration than usual, and he didn't notice what Skywarp was up to until he was almost done. The seeker was reclined against the pillows at the headboard, legs splayed wide and valve cover open to accommodate the two digits he was lazily pumping in and out of himself. When he saw Optimus looking, his smile widened.

“Well, come on in, big boy,” he offered, using his digits to spread his opening wide.

Optimus felt a flood of warmth shoot through his frame from helm to pedes, most of it pooling in his interface array as his spike hissed itself to full length, biolights beginning to pulse in time to his quickening sparkbeat, and cursed himself for it. Whatever else happened in this relationship, he refused to become the sort of pervert who got hard for dainty little mechs half his age. However Skywarp was acting, his field, amplified by their fresh bond, was still pulsing heavily buried hints of anxiety, and if there was one thing Optimus didn’t want to do tonight, it was potentially traumatize a mech he was going to have to spend the rest of his life with.

Still, their bond wouldn’t be considered complete until they’d consummated it, and if Optimus’s body was finally inclined to do that, then he was going to act before it changed its mind again.

Optimus rose to his pedes and approached the bed, keeping one servo cupped around his erect spike so that it wouldn’t bob obscenely on the approach.

“Come this way,” he beckoned to the seeker.

Skywarp crawled down the bed eagerly, one servo reaching to take his mate’s spike again, and Optimus caught him before he could. The young mech gave him a little pout and sat back.

“How do you want me?” he asked. “Knees? Side?... Back?”

“On your back, please,” Optimus nodded, feeling like a medic carrying out a physical exam as he added, “Scoot your hips as close to the edge of the berth as you can get.”

“Oh.” Skywarp fell back onto his aft and started scooting forward, open valve glistening invitingly, the purple biolights pulsing against the dark grey mesh, but the nervousness in his field was flaring stronger than ever.

Optimus looked back up to his face and the hopeful smile there.

“We don’t have to do this tonight, you know,” he said.

Skywarp’s field fluctuated in a way Optimus couldn’t read as the seeker blinked at him.

“We don’t… Yes, we do,” he insisted. “It’s our bonding night. We have to consummate it, don’t we?”

“There’s a grace period,” Optimus shrugged, trying to ignore the pings from his HUD reminding him that his spike was ready to go and he had a healthy, nubile bondmate spread open right in front of him. “We could wait a couple of nights if you prefer.”

“I don’t,” Skywarp cut him off quickly. “We bonded today, we have to consummate it tonight.”

“Are you sure—”

“Yes!”

Skywarp looked remarkably like his trine leader when he was determined, Optimus discovered, and he found himself wondering if this right here, in red and white, was what Megatron saw in his own berth every night. The thought sent another tinge of melancholic arousal through him, and he sighed.

“If you want to stop at any point—”

“I won’t.”

“—feel free to say so.”

“Would you just, like, fill me already?” Skywarp huffed, reaching down between his legs to spread the lips of his valve. “Don’t make me go to sleep dissatisfied on our first night together, Optimus. It wouldn’t really bode well for the rest of this relationship.”

“Very well,” Optimus nodded, trying not to project his own misgivings about the situation into their bond as he guided himself forward.

The biolights on Skywarp’s valve started flashing at an almost dizzying pace as Optimus nosed between his folds and pressed against the damp entrance. He met resistance there, and looked up when his mate’s vents hitched.

“I will proceed slowly,” he promised, and Skywarp nodded.

Optimus slicked his spike up and down the seeker’s valve, rubbing the glowing node at the top until the biolights slowed once more. It had been a long time since he’d done this, and the insistence that he sink in as soon as possible was more difficult to ignore than usual. He moved back down to the entrance to Skywarp’s valve and rubbed little circles round it while slowly pushing forward.

He sank in, and Skywarp’s vents picked up, his legs twitching up toward his chest and wings fluttering on the berth covers. Optimus kept pushing, knowing that any discomfort Skywarp was feeling would be better soothed by him getting past the tighter calipers at his entrance than by pausing here. 

There was a  _ pop _ of sorts, and suddenly he felt himself shoot forward, the seeker’s valve swallowing half his spike in one go with a warm, clinging embrace.

“Oh… PRIMUS!” Skywarp gasped, back arching and pedes curling with the suddenness of the stretch.

“Sorry,” Optimus grunted, gripping the seeker’s thighs to steady himself. “That was unintended.”

“Keep going!” Skywarp whined, shifting his legs in desperation, and Optimus was filling his pelvis so completely that he could  _ feel _ the gears in his thighs moving as an undulating pressure and vibration against his spike.

He pushed again, sliding a bit more cautiously this time for fear of hitting the back of Skywarp’s valve at any moment.

“Yeah, yeah…  _ Yes! _ ” Skywarp was panting and gasping, writhing and surging beneath him with his optics squeezed shut. “Stretch me, stretch me!  _ Yes! _ ”

Optimus tuned him out rather than bother asking him to stop being so filthy. No doubt the seeker was used to interfacing with mechs who enjoyed the sense that they were dominating him,  _ using _ him. If he had to interface with Skywarp enough to spark the mech, then they would have plenty of time in the future to work on that. For now, he just needed to get this done.

Somehow, he managed to sink his entire spike into the little mech, and though he only just hit the back of his valve, he could  _ see _ himself causing mild distension in the seeker’s abdomen, just behind his cockpit. Optimus was aware that there were those mechs who found extra arousal from the sight, but all it made him feel was concern.

“It… doesn’t hurt, does it?” he asked. 

Skywarp shook his helm, optics dim and hooded in his flushed face as he stared up at his mate.

“Feels awesome,” he moaned. 

And now that Optimus was seated so deeply within him, he could feel the pulse of his mate’s spark urging him to keep going, to solidify the bond they’d forged with each other earlier in the day. He started to move.

It was a slow rock at first, his rational mind still telling him that there was no way he could frag the seeker the way he did Elita without breaking something, but the tight, smooth slide and the grind of Skywarp’s gears against him was too exactly what his body wanted right now. He sped up, and Skywarp started gasping and chirping with each thrust, voice crescendoing in ecstasy.

Eager to end things as quickly as possible, Optimus reached down and rubbed his thumb pad over the seeker’s node. All at once, Skywarp clenched down around him so tightly that Optimus couldn’t even move for fear of his spike getting left behind inside the smaller mech.

“Keep going, keep going!” Skywarp begged, his hips jerking erratically as Optimus started flicking his node up and down so quickly his own servo turned into a blur. The seeker devolved into wordless cries of desperation until Optimus managed to pull out and then sheathe himself one last time.

Skywarp overloaded with a shout, his frame jerking in on itself and his vents hitching over and over again as the charge crackled through him. Optimus gave a few more generous thrusts, and then felt himself twitch and spill into the seeker’s convulsing valve. There was a sensation like a string suddenly pulling taut in his spark as their dispelled charge rocked through each other, and he knew the bond was completed.

“That was… Yeah,” Skywarp was mumbling, optics dark and frame limp against the berth covers.

Well, at least Optimus had managed to satisfy him.

The Prime pulled out with a grunt, keeping his optics averted from the gaping mess he’d made of the seeker’s valve as he wiped himself clean with a bit of cloth from his subspace. Skywarp sat up, gingerly, and swiped two curious digits right through the viscous fluids leaking out of himself.

“How much will it take to spark me?” he asked, pinching his fingers together to watch how the transfluid stringed between them when he pulled them apart.

“When you’re fertile, just one round should be enough,” Optimus shrugged.

“Hook gave me some pills to take that are supposed to induce heat, but he said we only have to use them if normal ‘facing doesn’t do anything,” the seeker mused. “So, what? A few more rounds should do the trick?”

Optimus paused, halfway through tucking himself away.

“In theory, yes,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll be sure to space them out enough that you don’t have to worry about it for a while still.”

“What?” Skywarp’s helm snapped up from his morbid examination of his own debauchery.

“There’s no reason for us to have to engage in intimacy more than once a week,” the Prime reassured him. “These rooms will be for your own use. Do not hesitate to ask for anything you might need, and feel free to wander at will.”

“You’re not staying here with me?” Skywarp blinked at him in surprise.

“It would be best to establish a stronger understanding of one another before attempting to share a living space, don’t you think?” Optimus pointed out.

“Oh. Yeah. I guess so.”

And there was something strange in Skywarp’s field again—something Optimus couldn’t quite read—but it was gone in an instant and then the seeker was smiling at him.

“See you tomorrow, then?” he checked.

“Indeed,” Optimus agreed, and then, because he felt like he ought to make  _ some _ acknowledgment of what had just passed between them, added, “Thank you for tonight.”

And then he was free to leave, to head back up to his own, familiar quarters where no seekers waited for him on the berth, and indulge in his own high grade store until his new bondmate’s presence in his spark was little more than a distant hint of sleepiness.

* * *

Skywarp laid back on the berth with a wince and stared up at the ceiling in confusion. As Starscream had assured him, real interfacing was much more taxing than the gentle digit and glossa stimulation they gave each other as trinemates. Now that the bliss of his overload had fled out the door with his mate, he hurt deep.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. If your mate took your seal, then there were special rituals that were supposed to follow that first interfacing. Skywarp knew for a fact that Megatron had done them for Starscream after their first time because Starscream had spent weeks afterward speculating aloud about whether or not Megatron knew the implications of devotion those actions had in Vossian culture. Optimus was a million times the gentlemech that Megatron was, so Skywarp had been certain he was in for the pampering of his lifetime after that first interface. Instead, he was just alone and aching in a big, wide berth.

He didn't even have the energy to fetch the medicated oils he'd set out on the berthside table for this express purpose. They were good ones, too—presents from Starscream that the silly bird had pretended he just happened to have lying around, but Skywarp knew he'd probably risked an intergalactic trade war to get his servos on. He'd been looking forward to seeing Optimus's reaction to them while the Prime helped massage his valve back to its natural state, just as he'd been looking forward to strong arms around him and a warm frame against his wings throughout the night.

So what had happened? Did Optimus still bear him resentment for their many altercations on the battlefield? Skywarp didn't  _ think  _ he'd ever killed anyone that Prime cared about personally, and anyway, Optimus had lunch dates with Megatron now, so bygones were clearly bygones at this point.

Meaning it had to be that Optimus didn't find Skywarp attractive enough. Willing to bond with him for political gains, no doubt, but couldn't stomach the sight of a seeker in berth beside him. Skywarp sniffed and tried reaching out toward the new presence in his spark, so strong it almost overshadowed his trinemates. There was a jolt of surprise in response, coupled with a complex array of emotions that were anything but happy, and then Optimus gently closed his end of the bond.

Skywarp gasped aloud at the rudeness of it. Naturally, Starscream shut him out all the time, but that was Starscream. They'd been shutting each other out whenever they wanted for over four million years; it wasn't anything personal. Speaking of which…

Skywarp moved his attention to his trinemates, first poking tentatively at the bond and then full on opening up a com call to Thundercracker. It rang so long he worried that perhaps the other seeker had turned his comms off for the night, but then it finally connected and a familiar, sleep-muddled voice spoke from the other end: "Hullo?"

"T.C.?" Skywarp sniffed. 

"Who else?" his trinemate grumbled. "Why are you calling? It's your bonding night. Don't you have better things to be doing right now?"

"Already done," Skywarp sighed regretfully. "How's Star?"

"He's as fine as he was when you saw him a few hours ago. Fell asleep on the way home. Warp, what's up? Prime didn’t hurt you, did he?"

"No."

"Then he didn’t do anything with you, did he? Why else would you be calling when you've got a new mate to play with? Is he there? In the next room? We told you this would happen."

"It wasn’t like that, T.C.! Optimus was a perfect gentlemech and in a minute I'm gonna go fall asleep in his big, steely arms, so there!"

Whatever else happened, Skywarp realized suddenly that he could not let his trine ever find out they'd been at least partially right about how disastrous this whole experience could prove. 

"Okay, so what did you want?" Thundercracker yawned.

"I was just calling to tell you how amazing he was. I didn't know it was possible to overload that hard!"

"Warp, I don't really need to--"

"And Primus is he huge! Filled me so full I could feel it against my--"

"Good night, Warp!" Thundercracker cut him off, and then there was the click of a comm line disconnecting.

Skywarp snorted. For a mech who ate valve like oil cake, Thundercracker could be shockingly prudish. He had few reservations when one of his trinemates came to him needing satiation, or when he himself needed to rub off some charge, but he never wanted to talk about it between times.

Still, hearing his voice had left Skywarp feeling more optimistic about things. After all, it had taken a while to get Thundercracker to stay put after a 'face, too. Perhaps this bond with Optimus wasn't doomed after all—Skywarp just needed to help him overcome his Iaconian reservations. How hard could it be after getting through  _ Starscream’s _ walls? (Mostly.)


End file.
